Bdale Garbee announced[3] that DMs[4] are now eligible to receive
HP-sponsored LWN subscriptions[5], in addition to DDs. Currently about
571 DDs and DMs are taking advantage of HP-sponsored LWN subscriptions.

A new service called UbuntuDiff[6] has been setup. It allows you to
quickly see Ubuntu changes made to Debian packages by specifying a
grep-dctrl query or by using shortcuts (e.g. [7], [8]). Your feedback and
bug reports are welcome.

Debian Sysadmins have enabled TXT records for debian.net domains. It is
suggested that you might want to use them to indicate maintainer
information in the case that the domain is “sponsored” by a DD and
maintained by a non-DD. Please note that since CNAME records cannot be
combined with other record types, you should get a TXT record added to
the canonical name instead of adding it to the debian.net domain.

— Paul Wise

Debian Sysadmin Team seeks for help
———————————–

A while ago, Stephen Gran sent a ‘Request for Help’ to the porter and
project mailinglists[9] asking for assistance in maintaining the chroots
on the porter machines. Several people applied and are now helping out
with that[10] (thanks!); still, we could use more helping hands. If
you’re interested check the message and contact DSA. Peter Palfrader also
described in the recent mail about porter chroot updates how to format
the Subject of a mail to make life easier for DSA.

It is now possible to subscribe to Ubuntu bugmail for the packages you
care about, without having to use Launchpad (and subscribe on a
per-package basis there). This is implemented as a new opt-in Package
Tracking System keyword: derivatives-bugs.

To subscribe for all your packages, use ‘keyword [email] +
derivatives-bugs’ (as documented in the Developers Reference[11]). You
might also want to subscribe to ‘derivatives’ (Ubuntu diff, etc. also
opt-in).

Of course, if other derivative distributions are interested in providing
such data, don’t hesitate to contact the Debian QA team.

Also, if you never remember about subscribing to packages you maintain,
you can use that UDD script[12] to check for missing subscriptions.